Good wives are obedient and attentive, even in the absence of their husbands. If your wife is prudent be careful not to have any quarrel with her; but if one should happen, let an arbiter be chosen from your own family, and one from hers. 5. Take one wife, or two, or three, or four, but never more. But if you doubt your ability to act equitably towards several, take only one. Give them a suitable dowry, take care of them, and speak to them always like a friend. 6. You are not permitted to inherit from your wife against her will; nor to prevent her from marrying another after her divorce, in order to possess yourself of her dower, unless she has been declared guilty of some crime. When you choose to separate yourself from your wife and take another, you must not, though you have even given her a talent at your marriage, take anything from her. 7. You are permitted to marry a slave, but it is better that you should not do so. 8. A repudiated wife is obliged to suckle her child until it is two years old, during which time the father is obliged to maintain them according to his condition. If the infant is weaned at an earlier period, it must be with the consent of both father and mother. If you are obliged to entrust it to a strange nurse, you shall make her a reasonable allowance. Here, then, is sufficient to reconcile the women to Mahomet, who has not used them so hardly as he is said to have done. We do not pretend to justify either his ignorance or his imposture; but we cannot condemn his doctrine of _one only God_. These words of his 122d _sura_, "God is one, eternal, neither begetting nor begotten; no one is like to Him;" these words had more effect than even his sword in subjugating the East. Still his Koran is a collection of ridiculous revelations and vague and incoherent predictions, combined with laws that were very good for the country in which he lived, and all which continue to be followed, without having been changed or weakened, either by Mahometan interpreters or by new decrees. The poets of Mecca were hostile to Mahomet, but above all the doctors. These raised the magistracy against him, and a warrant was issued for his apprehension as only duly accused and convicted of having said that God must be adored, and not the stars. This, it is known, was the source of his greatness. When it was seen that he could not be put down, and that his writings were becoming popular, it was given out in the city that he was not the author of them, or that at least he was assisted in their composition by a learned Jew, and sometimes by a learned Christian--supposing that there were at that time learned Jews and learned Christians.